Re: "Humanitarian Intervention in Congo" continues "Socialist command-type"

[Patrick Bond <pbond@xxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Burford" <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>
> I agree what is happening is imperialism.

Don't forget subimperialism.

> I also said, which you did not quote in your comment:
> >A better outcome would be to aid Africa to have its own intervention
> >force, as was tried to some extent in west Africa headed up by the
> >anti-democratic Nigerian regime. But it looks as if neither Nigeria nor
> >South Africa are up to sending troops to the Congo.

Update: it's beginning.

Several hundred SA troops have been peace-keeping in Burundi (300,000 killed
in last few years). A bogus elite ethnic-pacting deal has just been done a
couple of weeks ago there, and that will involve more SA troops for
peace-keeping, because two major rebel armies were left out of the deal.

Meanwhile, SA has been buying $5 bn worth of very sophisticated weaponry.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe looted the Democratic Republic of the Congo pretty
effectively, as a UN report shows (details available offlist if desired).
Most of the troops have been withdrawn, but the military's investments in
minerals remain lucrative.

Meanwhile, Rwanda continues looting the DRC for coltan, so each time you use
your cellphone, comrades, you're part of the problem.

Can anything be done via African statecraft? We're having a major debate on
some southern African lists about the so-called Peer Review Mechanism set up
in Abuja this week -- apparently to please the G8 this weekend. To give you
an idea of how ludicrous this gambit has become (after an attempted
withdrawal by Mbeki last October under pressure from Gaddafy), SA picked
Chris Stals as their peer. A broederbonder, sado-monetarist, former Reserve
Bank governor who steered the Bank from Afrikanderdom to hardcore
neoliberalism (with the highest real interest rates in SA history, plus
extremely dubious bank bailouts for his buddies), Stals is an excellent
example of the kind of peer that the African despots will enjoy comparing
notes with. "Which Cayman Islands bank gives best service?" So forget any
pretense to democracy, good government, state-building or development (as
falsely advertised in the New Partnership for Africa's Development).

Forget, indeed, any African Union solution to these intractable problems.
The solution will come from people-people contact and solidarity and
activism (including Northern comrades), and only after that process is
strengthened will the elites realise they've got to bow to democratic
forces. That happened regularly in the pan-African anti-colonial movement,
and signs are good that African anti-capitalism, from below, will slowly but
surely rise to the challenge (a long and quasi-Luxemburgist paper I did on
this at the recent Cuba Marxism conference is available if anyone would
like)...

> I hear few voices on this lists calling on the imperialists to
> keep their hands off Zimbabwe and instead compensate the country, although
> I believe that is what citizens of the UK and the US should say.

Hear hear, Chris! But first things first (imperialist hands are not really
visible these days, and subimperialism -- Mbeki/Obsanjo --continue nurturing
Harare). The comrades trying to get Mugabe to resign are embarking upon an
absolutely vital phase of the mass strike this coming week. Many are likely
to be shot dead. They are mainly the urban poor and workers, and good human
rights activists. They are being drawn inexorably leftwards and have no time
for an Iraqi 'solution'. They despise 'globalisation' because they had
structural adjustment in a lethal dose a decade ago... Be supportive!

Cheers from chilly Jo'burg.

P.